STANFORD, Ky. — Awareness of the high school fishing movement in Kentucky received a major boost from Bradley Roy.
The young Bassmaster Elite Series pro hosted the first Bradley Roy High School Open, Oct. 5 at Cedar Creek Lake. The event attracted 21 teams consisting of 42 high school anglers from across the state and Indiana and Tennessee. See a photo gallery of the event here.
“The majority of the teams were from close by, but the second-place team was from Louisville so they got up at 2:30 a.m. and drove over that morning,” said J.D. Blackburn, public relations coordinator for the event.
“They got there at about 5:30 and were one of the first teams there.”
Roy said he was pleased with the outcome of the event and the support given by his sponsors. “It went pretty well with Kentucky just starting high school fishing,” he said. “I was pretty impressed with the turnout. I couldn’t have asked for a whole lot more. The boat captains and every team went away with something, so it was really a cool deal.”
Sponsor donations included 11 Abu Garcia reels, fishing rod socks and gift cards. “Basically all of Bradley’s sponsors sent goodies,” Blackburn said. “A lot of those kids were pumped. They were blown away by all the things that they got.”
Cedar Creek Lake is managed by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources as a trophy fish lake with a 20-inch minimum size limit. The event became a paper tournament because of the size limit. “There were a bunch of fish between 19 and 20 inches that didn’t get weighed in,” Blackburn said. “So we had a scorecard for the kids and they filled in the lengths of 12-inch-plus fish that they caught.”
Matt Brown and Jeremy Elliott from Corbin High School won the event with eight fish, while Corey Skaggs and Tyler Bohannon from the Jefferson County High School club in Louisville took second with four fish. Both teams received automatic bids to the 2014 B.A.S.S. High School National Championship.
Blackburn announced a second annual event will be held in 2014 with the date and location to be determined later.
Sponsors for the event included First Southern National Bank, Abu Garcia, Berkley, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Angler’s Outpost & Marine, Triton, Mercury, Swiftwick Socks, Onyx Outdoor, Taylor Man’s Custom Lures, Elite Pro Custom Baits, Rod Kokoons, X-Stand Treestands, Biobor EB and the Kentucky B.A.S.S. Nation.
